


burned off the tapestry

by actualmuseofspace



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AKA, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Destiny, F/M, Family, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, Gryffindor Draco Malfoy, Horny Teenagers, Howlers (Harry Potter), Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Pining, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Slow Burn, Studying, Teenagers, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unresolved Romantic Tension, aka they ignore it, but everything happens just the same, everybody pines, so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23662132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualmuseofspace/pseuds/actualmuseofspace
Summary: Draco, age 11, does not understand the concept of destiny. Draco, age 17, chooses to reject it.--Draco, sorted into Gryffindor, becomes friends with Harry, Hermione, and Ron. For the next seven years, he will continue to disappoint his family - first by circumstance, then by choice.alternatively: draco learns that he can make his own choices. and for seven glorious years, he does. unfortunately, his choices don't matter all that much at the end.--"Us Gryffindor outcasts have to stick together, yeah? You're not the only one burned off the tapestry."
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger & Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger & Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Lavender Brown/Ron Weasley, Sirius Black & Draco Malfoy
Comments: 10
Kudos: 332





	burned off the tapestry

**Author's Note:**

> Hang in there, folks, this is a long one.

_ \--Year One-- _

In his first year, Draco is sorted into Gryffindor and disappoints his father forever.

_ \--Year Two-- _

In his second year, Draco realizes that he has real friends now. The kind that aren't bought, and who won't leave him the second a bigger fish shows up. Ron’s distrust has been broken ever since wizard chess, and Hermione admonishes him all the same over pumpkin juice in the morning. Harry passes notes to him in class and watches Draco and Ron's games. Draco’s friends have always been his father’s friends. These three are all his own. The revelation is staggering, and Ron and Harry both laugh at him as he chokes on treacle tart.

_ \--Year Three-- _

In his third year, Draco realizes that he will never make his family happy. He can't pinpoint an exact moment, but he knows it is a fact as he sits with Harry on the train home. It's a sober affair - neither he nor Harry wants to go home, Hermione mourns the loss of magic, and Ron relishes in the last moments of quiet. Draco knows all the domino chained moments that took them here:

\- When they sit in their dorm, and Harry and Ron laugh about the telephone incident. Draco has to have heard the whole thing three times now, but it's still rather funny. He remembers the letter he got from Ron, the one he held to his chest as he slipped past breakfast, instructing him to definitely not call. Draco hadn't been planning on it - he certainly wasn't about to ask his father for a telephone - but regrets he didn't try first, because he would've had far more sense than Ron.

\- When Harry receives the broom, and Draco and Ron both stare at it enviously. Draco's not nearly as good at quidditch as Harry is, so he's only the reserve seeker, and his father certainly won't buy a broom for a reserve seeker. Harry promises that Draco can use it if Harry isn't - after all, they'll never run into a conflict. Draco and Hermione campaign to get it inspected, and although the conflict eventually feels foolish, it’s the first fight they really have.

\- When the four of them, long moved past such issues, confront their teacher, turned their enemy, Draco is the first to realize he can’t see the world in a duality. Sirius Black might have been a blood traitor, but Draco can choose not to hate him. Things make more and less sense. They all have a choice. Maybe that’s why Draco takes a little longer to strike. Or maybe he still doesn’t know where he stands.

_ \--Year Four-- _

In his fourth year, Draco is reminded that he has Slytherin in his blood. With Harry entered in the Triwizard tournament, albeit without his consent, Draco realizes he has a deep-seated streak of cunning. Harry’s too  _ good _ to play to win, but Draco refuses to let him lose.

While Harry and Hermione are practicing spells, Draco focuses on other plans. He finds no other evidence of a one-hit way to eliminate a dragon, although Cedric still doesn't know what they're facing.

When Harry tells Cedric, Draco wants to shout at him.

"Harry, he's your enemy! You're  _ competing!" _

"I don't want to be competing! I levelled the playing field like it's supposed to be!"

"Bloody Gryffindors."

"We're all Gryffindors!"

Draco has no response. He lets Hermione practice spells with Harry, and stays out of it. Ron is equally disgruntled, and Draco takes a moment to laugh that he feels like commiserating with a Weasley.

After the first task, though, things ease up around the edges. Draco and Hermione have silently agreed to let Harry handle the egg on his own, and so Draco instead focuses on doing his work. The Triwizard tournament is no excuse for slipping, and McGonagall has certainly not loosened her workload. Even if Harry and Ron seem to consider work optional, Draco has sacrificed any guarantees at a future.

Once Harry figures out the egg - aided by Cedric, which makes Draco grudgingly admit that maybe helping him before wasn’t a completely God-awful idea - real work begins. Harry’s ambition is slacking, but Draco knows that Harry has to win this. They still don’t know who entered him, but Harry has too much at stake to lose.

So Draco does his research, even asking Snape for ideas. (Snape still isn't sure what to make of Draco, but he helps by giving access to his stores.) He's surprised when Dobby gives Harry gillyweed too, but it's not like an excess has ever hurt anyone.

After Harry pulls up Draco and Fleur's little sister, Draco decides that it's a miracle Harry has gotten this far, and it'll be a miracle if he wins.

Sitting in the stands for the third task is pretty miserable. It’s even worse when Harry and Cedric grab the trophy and vanish. Draco’s never regretted anything, but he almost (almost) regrets pushing Harry so hard to win. At least if Harry had lost, he wouldn’t have just  _ vanished _ . Draco knows that people don’t generally vanish and come back.

Ron and Hermione are equally gobsmacked, but not one of them knows what to do. The three sit in the silence that’s fallen over the crowd, too shocked to whisper.

Harry gets back, and the pit that had opened in Draco’s stomach begins to close. There’s a shocking intensity in Draco’s heart when he watches Harry walk away from him again. He hasn’t established that Harry is okay. He watches, helpless, and wonders where the feeling came from.

When everything is over, though, Draco realizes he can’t ever go back.

_ \--Year Five-- _

In his fifth year, Draco doesn't see his family. Ron and Hermione and he stay in the Order safe house, but while Hermione takes the occasionally guarded journey to see her parents and Ron's whole family is also crammed into the old Black house, Draco is mostly alone.

He also doesn’t understand why Harry couldn’t come with them. It seems a cruel twist of fate that Draco can reside in perhaps the most concentrated area of light while Harry must remain completely isolated in a house of bloated and mundane dark.

Draco does his best to write extensive letters. Hermione and Ron try, but they’re not as good at concealing information as him. Draco isn’t always great, either, but if he were Harry, he’d appreciate substantial communications even if they were meaningless. Harry, in turn, writes frequently, though much shorter, and with a messy scrawl that reveals his scattered and increasingly frustrated thoughts.

Draco finds an unlikely friend in Sirius Black. When Draco asks to come to the safe house, he knows there must have been murmurs of distrust, because Black staunchly defends his presence. Later, Black takes Draco up through the house. It hasn't been fully cleaned yet, but Black opens a door and Draco instantly knows it used to be his bedroom.

"Us Gryffindor outcasts have to stick together, yeah? You're not the only one burned off the tapestry."

Once they all meet up (“I can’t believe this! To risk your safety by  _ running away _ ? And by  _ Night Bus _ no less - you're lucky you still have all your limbs attached." "I'm happy to see you too, Draco."), it's a little better. Through a special brute force kind of diplomacy, Harry manages to weasel them into Order meetings, although its Draco who finds himself able to contribute - no one in the Order has any sense when it comes to pureblood politics.

At Hogwarts, the situation looks dire. Draco knows  _ exactly _ why no one is taking Dumbledore seriously - before he turned 11, he heard all about their plans to discredit him, and after that, well, it was Draco’s father who was always reminding him to be a good listener.

Umbridge is exactly as horrible as a wild boar wearing pink lipstick and a pink tutu, and just as out of the loop. She means to recruit Draco to help her patrol the school, but the Slytherin purebloods rat him out. Just as well, since Weasley and Granger made prefect, and he was hoping to stay out of the eye of the public.

Most of his fifth year is spent stopping Harry from doing stupid things, and helping Hermione make better choices. That, and studying for OWLs. Harry and Ron may have invested skiving snack boxes rather than an education, but a disgraced Malfoy needs something other than a name to show for himself.

He and Hermione squeeze in studying every chance they get. When avoiding Harry’s whining and Ron’s abuse of snack boxes grows too difficult, they begin passing notecards under the table. When even that grows too difficult, Draco learns that telling Harry Umbridge has made a new rule is rather effective at dispersing him for a few moments. It’s never a lie.

When Hermione suggests starting a defence club, Draco is happy to make sure she holds her meeting securely. While she's a far better spearhead than him for the matter, he does his behind-the-scenes work. He can't enchant the coins, but he's the person who cross-references the members’ schedules to come up with the least conflicting time each week. Draco wonders what they would’ve done without him.

Draco also relishes their late-night chats with Sirius. They are sadly but rationally few and far between, and Draco understands they can’t have more, but he wishes things were different. Sirius is Harry's godfather, but he gives Draco encouraging winks, then passes out stories of his time at Hogwarts like petit fours to the both of them. Harry needs them because he needs to remember his family. Draco needs them because he needs someone to tell him it’s OK to forget his.

(Draco tries not to be resentful when Harry ushers him out of the room for a few minutes alone. But trying is not the same thing as succeeding.)

When they go out to look at Thestrals, Draco feels sick. Both at the fact that had things gone the way his father planned, he probably would've been able to see them, and the fact that Harry can. It's painful and the worst lesson Draco has ever had.

Harry seizes under Umbridge's oppression, and Draco thinks it's a miracle he's not following in the Weasleys' footsteps. The twins’ actions were incredibly brave but in no means repeatable, yet the idea of it tracks on to everyone. Eventually, Draco has to say something to Harry.

"You think everything is so awful for you, don't you? Poor widdle boy who lived. Nothing ever goes right for him. It's pitiful."

"I don't think that!"

"Then stop acting like it!"

"Me stop acting pitiful? You're the one who brings up everything you could've had at any given opportunity! It sounds almost like you don't want to be here."

"I'd rather be in Slytherin if it meant I didn't have to hear you whining!"

"Bloody hell, I'm not whining."

"Will you just  _ shut up _ ?"

(To Draco’s sudden gasp, silence, and disbelief, the “make me” is implied.)

They don’t talk about it after, a fact that Draco is completely okay with. Hermione seems happy the tension has resolved, even if she doesn’t understand why, and Ron remains Ron.

He’s still Weasley - annoying and a little hard to like, but a good chess player and fantastically loyal, the kind of way Draco thought you had to buy. It lends itself to confusion - Draco has no idea why Ron insists that he should come when his father almost died. It seems clear to Draco that the stakes of raising suspicions are far too high. Ron disagrees.

Umbridge not being enough, Draco finds himself saving the world again. Draco justifies the fact that he doesn’t stop the attack on the Ministry, that he even goes with them, to stress from OWLs. It doesn't stop him from blaming himself.

When you’re an international criminal with no body to speak of, there is no funeral. Harry and Draco sit outside the back of Grimmauld Place and talk about the future. Draco doesn't think it'll be safe at Hogwarts next year, but you can only do what you can do.

They go back to King's Cross. Draco doesn't get off the train, though - he'll ride it back to Hogwarts where Remus or some other Order member will pick him up, but he does hug Harry before they get off. In war, you do what you must.

_ \--Year Six-- _

In his sixth year, Draco finally understands that no one is safe. His sixth year at Hogwarts is the longest, most gruelling, worst, before it even starts. Over the summer, he stays at Grimmauld Place, mostly alone.

He sleeps in Sirius’ bedroom sometimes. Kreacher hates it, but Kreacher hates anything to do with Draco, so he doesn’t take it personally. Unlike last year, Draco’s letters are sparse. Harry’s are equally disappointing in return, though, so Draco supposes he can’t complain.

About half-way through the summer, Draco gets moved to the Weasley’s. He doesn’t feel right, moving into their already cramped house and imposing himself, but it’s non-negotiable. It took Mrs. Weasley 6 years to warm up to Draco Malfoy, but apparently she’s decided to force every ounce of mothering on him that she can.

He gets used to the chaos of the Weasley household. He helps Mrs. Weasley make breakfast, because it's the one thing he's good for. He makes a better quidditch referee than anyone else. Ginny likes him well enough.

Once they get to Hogwarts, everything seems bleak again. Snape, of all people, is in charge of Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry managed to get into Potions. The world is spun upon its head.

Harry is taking occlumency lessons from Snape. Draco reads his book in a common room chair while he listens to Hermione and Ron reprimand him for not trying.

"Why don't you seem more concerned?" Hermione asks him one night.

"He'll learn when he learns." Draco turns the page. "A shoddy teacher teaches nothing. Harry will learn when he learns."

"This isn’t chess! He can’t just ‘learn when he learns.’"

"He doesn't have a choice."

Despite the looming tensions, it's a relatively uneventful year. There are no basilisks or Umbridges or even Triwizard tournaments. Dare he say it, Draco believes he might be experiencing a year of actual learning. It's driving Harry and Ron up the wall, but he supposes there must be some sacrifice.

While Ron runs off to date Lavender Brown (“Regrettable,” Draco notes to Harry while they study Harry’s potions textbook, “Because he doesn’t see what he’s doing to Hermione.”), Harry tries out new spells and Hermione catches Draco's pining in the act.

Maybe it's the fact that she's sensitive, but her words are sharper than Draco feels he deserves.

“You,” she says, as they do their arithmancy homework, “are going to break your heart over him.” He doesn’t respond. “Draco,” she says, with more urgency, “I don’t know what happened between you, but you’re staring after him like a lovesick dog.”

“Better than being Lavender Brown, I suppose.” Hermione’s face turns from the contorted stern she’s been trying to force to sad. “Hermione,” he says. “He’ll break his heart if you let him.”

Hermione turns the page just before he’s ready. Draco assumes she’s aware of this. “The world will not be kind to you. They’ll pin it all on you, blame you for everything. You don’t need to have anything for them to go after you for breaking his heart.” (Draco hears, “We had nothing, and they went after me for breaking his heart.”)

“And Draco,” she adds, not quite an afterthought, “You should know - If you do break his heart, the world will never forgive you." (She means "I'll never forgive you.")

"I wasn't planning on it." Hermione's face drains of tension. Draco, vaguely, wonders how long she’s been worried about them.

"I don't want to pick between the Boy Who Lived and the Exiled Prince." She laughs, a little, and Draco realizes it’s the first time she’s laughed since the fall.

"Oh, is that what they're calling me now? I quite like it. I should tell Harry, actually, maybe he'll cast me next as his Half-Blood Prince." Hermione laughs.

"I’d be careful, he might actually.” They both turn back to their homework. None of them have slept reliably since 4 th year, but it’s starting to get sad that Hermione and Draco are always the last ones up from the common room. If people start to talk, Draco will be royally pissed off. If rumours are to be spread, he wants them to be good ones. Like, “Draco is sleeping with Harry Potter” good ones.

Not that they’re sleeping together. Harry is remarkably held back in his advances. Draco isn’t sure if it’s because they’re fighting a war, Harry has no experience, or this is just how it is, but the closest thing he’s gotten to an advance is the way Harry leans into him once it’s just the four of them left in the common room.

Occasionally, if they’re alone, Harry will tense in a way that suggests a kiss, but never leads to one. It’s funny, though, how in perspective everything is, because Draco can’t put forth the energy to confront him. How selfish would he have to be?

They have Horcruxes to worry about. Hermione is about to dive deep into the library when Draco says, “Don’t bother, they won’t have anything on them that I can’t tell you, which isn’t much, but that’s what you get for some powerful dark magic.”

“This is why they’ve been calling you the Exiled Prince in the Prophet, you know.”

“The Quibbler puts out better news than the Prophet, Ron, and anyway, I thought we agreed to never mention that horrendous excuse for a name.” Draco has never lost his Slytherin eye roll. Every pureblood is trained to do it on birth - except for Gryffindors, of course.

Harry is an idiot, but the decision to use the Felix Felicis is a move so brilliant Draco's half-convinced that Hermione or he must've mentioned it to Harry at some point. ("I'm not that much of an idiot, Draco." "I dunno mate, he kind of has a point." "Yes! Ten points to Weasley for being smarter than Harry.")

Draco consistently offers advice based on what Harry tells him about his lessons with Dumbledore, but more and more it seems to turn into nonsense.

Just as he is beginning to believe that not every year of school has to involve a terrifying brush with death, he gets a letter from his mother. Narcissa Malfoy is a woman of pride who would follow her husband anywhere, as long as he was going somewhere she agrees with. The letter is dense and packed with tricky language and double meanings. It is clear there is to be no expected response.

Draco decides he has no better choice but to sit on it a while longer. The information in it is subjective. He'll let it play out.

Still, the fact that the Malfoy house hasn't been ignoring him outside of their stark letters of confirmation when Draco announces his plans to stay with friends over the summer means that Draco has to do some thinking.

He spends every ounce of his day with the same 3 people. He needs space.

The Room of Requirement is a perfect place. The Room of Lost Things has never stopped itself from including people.

(Draco feels at home amongst the discarded. He finds leftover snack boxes tucked inside a broken cabinet, muggle gadgets he can’t work, and trophies too tarnished to read, and thinks he belongs.)

When Harry asks him where he went, Draco goes snappish and cold. He can't help it, but he needs a break from the constant heroism. He needs shades of grey that Harry isn't ready to see.

(He doesn't bring it up to Harry because the conversation would go something like this:

"I need place to think! To clear my head!"

"What, is this some return to the dark? I thought you stayed with the Order so you weren't shunted into Death Eater-ship!"

"What was that thing Sirius used to say? Oh, right, the world isn't made of good people and Death Eaters! You're so convinced there's no other way to do it that you don't see your flaws."

Then, in Draco’s perfect fantasy world, Harry kisses him and they make up and everything is the kind of perfect that can’t exist in the world they live in. So he doesn’t bring it up.)

Draco can't withdraw from his life completely, though. He's been announcing for Quidditch, and suddenly Gryffindor is winning incredibly well. Harry's a fantastic Seeker and a better captain, and Draco is too elated to be jealous that Granger gets to congratulate them first because Harry always takes his sweet time packing up, but Draco doesn't mind barging into the locker room.

It's empty, because Harry is always the last out. Harry, who's shirtless and high on winning. Harry, who locks eyes with Draco with a grin so large Draco would've once assumed it was fake.

"You're going to kiss me now, right? I mean, I might be wrong, but that's normally what people do when they win." 

Harry laughs.

"I thought you didn't want a relationship."

"I don't give a fuck, as long as you kiss me."

(It turns out that Draco gives a vast number of fucks, but he can't give one in a locker room. Not without the risk of Granger busting in.)

Eventually, as Harry goes back to doing dangerous, stupid things, in the name of a poorly explained plan, Draco realizes the high of an almost-relationship has blinded him. He searches his room for the letter, the weight on his chest making it hard for him to breathe as he realizes his mistake.

The truth comes out in stuttering thoughts as he tears apart his room hunting for his letter. Ron asks him what's going on, but all Draco can stutter out is, "Hogwarts - attack - lives - gotta go." Ron, bless his trusting soul, is sensible enough to find Hermione and chase after him.

Brandishing the letter like it bears a curse, Draco charges into McGonagall. He still hasn’t calmed down enough to speak sensibly, so McGonagall stares at him until the glare and ire alone is enough to force air into his lungs.

“My mother - she sent me a letter a month or two ago - it’s cryptic, I wasn’t sure - didn’t want to unnecessarily raise alarm -” Draco pauses, judging the minute twitches in McGonagall’s face. “I think they’re planning to attack Hogwarts. Tonight, maybe, but I don’t know. They’ll want to kill Dumbledore. I’m sorry, I forgot.”

“Malfoy. You have been a great asset to the Order. Your mother, however, is not on our side. How sure are you that we can trust this tip-off?” Draco loves McGonagall because she trusts him to make a judgement call.

“Fairly sure. It’s not like extra security will do us damage, though, right?” 

“At the moment, Mr Malfoy, I suggest you return to your common room. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, but I promise this is now in safe hands. We will secure Hogwarts to the best of our ability, and you can rest easy knowing this is already the safest place for you to be.” Draco cannot put words to his remaining discomfort, so he is left with no choice but to listen to her.

Ron and Hermione are waiting outside the office.

“Dumbledore, really? I guess they’re really making moves for the big guns, now.”

“I haven’t been a true part of the politics for years, now. It’s a horrible sign if You-Know-Who feels powerful enough to make so bold a move, though.” Draco’s only a little surprised he’s finally switched over from the Dark Lord to You-Know-Who.

In the end, though, his warning is all but useless. Someone still fixed the vanishing cabinet. Death Eaters still entered the school. McGonagall had everyone watching the exterior borders - who would’ve thought to look at the Room of Lost Things? Draco himself was in there for a ridiculous amount of time this year and he wouldn’t have even considered it a possible entryway into the school.

Harry doesn’t blame Draco. Harry looks at Draco with an intensity that’s nearly out of place amidst grief and says, “He died for this. How do we destroy it?”

A sensible Draco would shrug. A sensible Draco is not a Draco in shock.

“It depends. There are plenty of ways, but I think Gryffindor’s sword should do it - didn’t you use that to finish off the journal?”

“Yeah, but that’s in the headmaster’s office. Who knows if it’ll let us in.” Draco closes his eyes and sighs.

“The only other ways I can think of are ridiculously dangerous. We do no good if we get killed in destroying it.” Draco scans their surroundings. Everyone else has retreated to their common rooms. Ron and Hermione are sitting in the opposite chairs, but he figures that they won’t begrudge him for this. He wraps his arms tight around Harry.

“I don’t know what to do.” Harry’s voice cracks.

“No one knows what to do. We figure it out as we go. We’ll figure this out, too.”

The funeral is short and painful. Harry gives a speech that Draco read over. After, the four of them sit in their common room. Others are still around, playing chess or exploding snap or trying desperately to pretend that everything is fine.

Harry, apparently, needs to go back to the Dursley’s before he can be shepherded into Order based safety. Draco gets to kiss his boyfriend goodbye. In times of war such as this, it feels less chaste than it is.

Draco doesn’t have to go home - he follows Ron straight to the Burrow. Molly Weasley’s single comforting touch is enough to make him crumble, but he puts on the strongest face he can. Ginny is the closest thing he has to a younger sister. It wouldn’t do good to fall apart before they even truly face war.

_ \--Year Seven-- _

In his seventh year, Draco doesn’t go to Hogwarts and disappoints his father forever. They're attacked at the wedding, but between him and Granger, they have enough supplies put together to escape. Harry and Ron were never good at preparing things, or at understanding the gravity of situations.

When they go back to Grimmauld Place, the pain on Harry's face is clear as moonlight. Harry has never been good at hiding his pain. It's not because he's never had to. It's something else, something a little meaner inside Draco that latched on to not sharing these things.

"Draco," Hermione says, her face confused and somewhere close to helpless. "Where do we go from here?"

Draco runs a hand through his hair. "We get the locket back. That's what we're here for, aren't we?"

Hermione and Draco plan while Ron and Harry have existential crises.

"No," Hermione says, "the only way is to become real Ministry members."

"If we do that," Draco says, voice calm and smooth, "we risk being found out very easily. People are very perceptive to when someone is acting strangely."

"Yeah, but it shouldn't be a major concern. "

"Well, we won't have time to do any surveillance."

"Draco, it's never going to be a seamless plan. This might be the best we can do."

"Fine," he says. "I hope it works. I really hope it does."

Despite his truthfulness, he can't stop his voice from being laced with venom.

Draco has never been happier for Hermione to be right. He wishes she could've been right for longer. He wishes things didn't go wrong. But there's no spell to fix the unfixable. There's no timeturner waiting to solve their problems. There's no more undo buttons. They're out of options, out of allies, out of time.

Hermione's apparition is sharp, and while she didn't consider it while casting the spell, staying in a Muggle forest is bound to at least give them some time. Hermione begins putting up spells, and Draco helps with a few. Mostly, though, he paws through their bag so he can begin to decipher their resources.

Harry's getting what he wanted. There's a quest for Horcruxes in store, and it doesn't bode well for the fate of the wizarding world. It's ironic, because as things outside their protective barriers fall further and further into hell, Harry falls asleep closer and closer to Draco, pushing Draco closer and closer to heaven.

His father would say that Draco was a disappointment and dishonour to the family, but Draco doesn't care anymore. A stark contrast from the first year who received a howler on his second day for having the audacity to be sorted into Gryffindor. (By how quick the teachers neutralized it, it couldn't have been the first occurrence.)

Harry’s visions continue to bother him. Draco can’t offer any comfort, so he lets Hermione and Ron say banalities inside the tent while outside, Draco debates taking up smoking. They have nowhere to go, no real plan, and heroism is not a constant state of mind. Draco was ready for this moment. Hermione might have been, too, because sometimes when Harry and Ron are both  _ mad _ at the universe for letting things turn out this way, she comes outside with him.

They stick mostly to Muggle forests. Hermione tells Draco about the muggle field of astronomy, about how the stars really are. Draco doesn’t know how magic fits into the science Hermione brings up less and less, but it’s comforting to know that the stars are at least a little predictable.

When Ron runs off, Draco is only bothered because Harry is. He doesn’t care that they have a deserter - he can’t bring himself to care when, were it not for Harry and Hermione and people he’s just Gryffindor enough to want to protect, he would have done the same.

Hermione is heartbroken. Draco whispers meaningless platitudes while they discuss where to find the sword of Gryffindor. He still thinks they’re better off using reliable, tested, methods, but he’s too easily outvoted.

Sometimes, late at night, when Hermione and Harry are breathing steadily, Draco sneaks out of the tent. He’s done it enough that the cold doesn’t make his breath hitch and the gentle flutter of the front flap doesn’t stir them.

The stars always shine brightly.

Hermione says that in most muggle areas the stars have been covered up. Draco thinks that should be a crime, but Hermione says it perfectly legal. Draco didn't know it was possible to cover the stars.

"Hey," Harry says, his voice thick from sleep. "What're you doing out here? You'll catch a cold."

Draco rolls his eyes. "That's not how illness works, Harry." Harry just takes a blanket, still warm from the tent, and sits next to Draco, wrapping them both in it.

"What do you think the stars see, when they look at us?"

"Nothing." Draco says. "The earth is not nearly bright enough to reach them."

"For a wizard," Harry remarks, "you can be very literal."

Draco rolls his eyes again, but when Harry pulls him into the tent, he doesn't object.

Harry falls asleep by wrapping himself around Draco, as if he’s afraid that if he lets Draco go, Draco will be gone when he wakes up again. Draco lies on his back in the bed, wondering what it must be like to have to sleep on the ground. His back aches in the morning, which comes too quickly once he finally manages to fall asleep.

Harry is still there. He's already awake and has gotten dressed, but he's still there, running a hand casually through Draco's hair while he talks with Hermione.

Harry is still there.

"Draco," Hermione says as soon as she realizes he's awake. "Where should we go from here?"

What is he supposed to tell her? He doesn’t have any answers. He doesn’t even know what questions to ask.

“I think we have a necklace to destroy. We just need to find a way to do it. We need more information.”

Hermione looks at him with frustration.

“Draco, if it were as easy as dropping by the local library, we would’ve done that by now.”

He knows. He knows.

“Look. We’re out of options. We’re out of allies. We’re out of convenience. Maybe it’s time we do something inconvenient.”

"Like what?" she says, her voice sharp and laced. Draco's taken classes on poisons. He knows the way belladonna feels like sugar on your tongue until you realize it isn't.

"Maybe," he says slowly, darting his eyes from Hermione to the tent until he lands on Harry, standing off to one side like getting in between Draco and Hermione while they butt heads is life threatening. “Maybe we go back in time. Not literally, just, to the creation of one horcrux we - hypothetically - know how to deal with.”

“You want to go to my parents’ house.”

“Neither of you have been. We should go. It’s probably a dead end, but it’s the best lead we’ve got.”

“Okay,” Harry says, his face gaunt. “I don’t see how it could hurt.”

Hermione takes the night off.

Not really. This isn’t an unpaid apprenticeship. They don’t get to ask for personal days. But she doesn’t come with them to the cemetery or the house. Hermione spends her time preparing. Making potions, reading over notes, whatever she can do to give them another edge.

(“You’re right,” she says to Draco. “We’re completely outclassed. So let me just do what I can to level the playing field.” 

“It’s dangerous to split up. This isn’t exactly an inconspicuous location or time.”

“It’s Christmas, Draco, and you’re just as accomplished as I am...If you weren’t here, it’d be just me and Harry, and I wouldn’t be scared at that.”

“Okay,” he says, and before he leaves, he turns his head over his shoulder. He sees her red eyes and the way her hair has fallen out of its bun, lacking the usual businesslike restraint she uses to keep it out of her face. “You should put your hair back if you’re going to be making potions.” He takes one more step, halfway between the bitter outside and the tent. “And Granger,” he adds, resorting to her last name, because they both need the distance, “I am so sorry about your parents.”)

Draco Malfoy is proud to say he has few regrets. He’s not proud that one of them was leaving Hermione alone at Christmas. He’s not sure if the reason he’s so ashamed about it comes from how he can hear his mother scolding him in his head for leaving a poor girl alone on Christmas like that, or because of what happens as a result.

For a brief moment, when Harry closes his eyes on Draco’s shoulder, and Draco realizes he would do anything to take away the pain, Draco would do it, he doesn’t think about Hermione, alone, her parents not even remembering her.

He does when they go to Harry’s parents’ house. He looks at it and thinks about what things would be like, were Harry raised in this house. Draco doesn’t know. Maybe they would’ve become friends faster, without everything standing in the way. Maybe they wouldn’t have been. Draco can’t know.

He does know that if Hermione would have gone with them, they wouldn’t have broken Harry’s wand. Breaking a wizard’s wand is worse than breaking their leg. It mutes them. It takes away a form of expression. Draco feels it as sharply as he does every time Harry found himself in the hospital wing.

Hermione and Harry don’t understand why, exactly, it’s such a big deal. Draco can’t put into words the loss a wand breaking has. Wands are expected to last for the entire life of a wizard. Harry won’t even have a chance to replace it. Most wizards take a few days to replace a wand. They have to get over losing what developed along with them. One of Draco’s cousins broke a wand and didn’t replace it for two months. Draco thought that was entirely excessive, but there is a finite sense of grief associated with the ordeal. Harry can’t quite afford to wait, but Draco can’t let go of the idea that he should be able to replace it. This forced gap feels like being forced to cry.

It’s sad. But Harry isn’t. He should get to move forward. Right now, though, they’re stuck constantly in the present.

Harry reads a biography of Dumbledore. It’s malicious and Draco wants to burn it, but Harry won’t let him. Draco writes himself. Usually, he writes letters. Usually, they’re to his mother. Not always, but usually.

He can’t mail them, but it makes him feel like he hasn’t left everything to write them. Like maybe, if he can find the right words, and find the way to send them to her, she’ll read them, and know how to fix everything.

Draco’s not quite hopeful, but he wonders if the muggles have a point, coming of age at 18. They feel too young to have questions of fate in their hands.

Draco falls asleep with Harry every night, but he can’t help but think there’s a sense of distance growing. Harry and Draco take watch, most nights, always one at a time. It’s not that Hermione isn’t capable. It’s that they both feel the drive to breathe the cold air. To feel like they’re really there.

So on the night Harry finds the sword and Ron comes back, Draco is asleep.

Draco doesn’t think much of this fact, later. At the time, he feels a sharp sense of hurt. That he wasn’t awake. He knows he couldn’t have done anything. But a part of him wishes he had been able to.

He does think about where to go from here. The necklace is destroyed, a positive, but they're back to square one with no leads to follow.

It's Hermione who sees a strange symbol in a gift from Dumbledore and thinks of Lovegood to investigate it.

Draco doesn’t know what’s going on with him. He’s off his game. Maybe it’s Ron, setting things akimbo. Ever since he’s gotten back, Draco and Hermione haven’t quite been able to put their heads together in the same way.

She’s madly in love with him. Draco recognizes it the same way he recognizes it in himself. It’s weakening them.

Draco’s father used to say if you spent your brain on love, you’d lose it for what matters. Draco knows most of what his father used to say was bull, but he can’t shake the idea that he and Hermione could take Voldemort down if they sat down and concentrated on it for a few hours.

So Draco is the first to notice what’s going wrong. “Harry,” he says. “Harry, I think something’s wrong.” But Harry is naive. He believes people are good. He has a faith Draco has long lost. And so they don’t act. Not until it’s too late.

They get away, and they all sit around a merry fire. They don’t need a fire. But Hermione has so many trackers set up that if anything it helps them pass, making them look just a little more like a muggle campsite. Not that looking like a muggle campsite is important. Still. The warmth adds to some atmosphere. Some friendliness. Something that warms them up even when their failures stack up.

Draco knows the language of speaking in maybes and what ifs.

“What if,” Harry asks, “we just went for the Hallows? We’d be more powerful with them. We could take down Voldemort.”

The silence is sudden and painful and sharp. Draco can feel the blood in his mouth, in the same place he tastes the fear.

“We have to go,” he stammers. “Now. We have to move.” They don’t have time. It happens too fast.

Draco can’t look his own home in the eye. It’s not right. He doesn’t recognize it. Malfoy Manor has always been cold, but now it feels frigid, like it’s trying to shut Draco out. They sit in the dungeon that Draco was never allowed to go into and look at the gaunt and grim faces of the casualties of a war Draco almost fought in.

"So," he says, his voice a weak imitation of humour. "Welcome to my home. If you need anything at all, just ask, although I'm falling down on my hosting duties. There's not a bathroom if you need to relieve yourself, and the cook has been sick, so expect food that's disgusting and irregular. Did I miss anything?"

Luna giggles. She's still as insufferably  _ bright _ as Draco remembers her, her hair catching light that doesn't exist and her skin shockingly light against the damp and grey dungeon walls.

“Seems you caught everything to me, Draco.”

Draco takes a moment to examine their surroundings. “Well, it won’t do any good staying here. I suppose they send guards down, somewhat regularly, yes?” 

Luna nods.

In the absence of Hermione, Draco supposes an actual Ravenclaw will have to do.

"This does seem like the type of place to have a secret passageway. Draco, I don't suppose you'll have a secret up your sleeve to delight us?"

Draco shakes his head. “I was never allowed down here. Guess I know why.” His attempts at humour don’t seem to be catching on. Maybe it’s a uniquely Draco trait, to find the worst moments the most humorous.

But Dobby, the house elf that Draco never thought about until Harry was in the right place, with the right mind, at the right time, that is practically in love with Harry and seems to be on neutral terms with Draco, he thinks it’s hilarious.

And Hermione might be gone, but Draco is still sharp.

“Dobby,” he says. “Your magic. You control it now, right?”

“Yes,” Dobby says. “Master Draco.”

Draco wants to push a phantom pair of glasses up his nose and say, “I’m not your master anymore,” but he can’t. He picked up those habits. One from Harry, the other from Hermione. (The ones he picked up from Ron are more subtle. Strategies in wizard chess and fake poker tells. How to comfort a crying girl. Nothing that would be useful now.) It doesn’t matter. He needs to be Draco Malfoy, now, not Draco who was sorted into Gryffindor by some improper turn of fate. That’s who he’s needed to be for a while.

“Can you get us out of here?”

“Yes. But Master Harry will need to give the command - Mistress Bellatrix has attempted to take command.” Draco nods. This isn’t going to be easy.

But when, he thinks, as they’re breaking into Bellatrix Lestrange’s Gringotts vault, are things easy for them?

(Never, he realizes, pressed against Hermione as they struggle to fit under the invisibility cloak. Harry and Ron had to stay back for this adventure. They haven't all been able to fit for a long time, and Draco figures that the safest place for the Chosen One probably isn't the most dangerous place to break in to.)

Hermione does a good job impersonating Bellatrix. Draco barely has to coach her, which is good, because Draco doesn’t exactly spend time studying how Bellatrix walks. Of late, they’ve all gotten good at impersonations anyway. It’s a skill that keeps seeming to come in handy.

Once they make it into the vault, Draco and Hermione look at each other.

“How do we know what to choose?” she asks, her voice bouncing cold and metallic off the piles of gold. Hermione’s not from a wizarding family, so her eyes still look big and warm at the mountains of precious metals stored deep underground. (Draco can hear her voice, from when she lectured about how the wizarding world could at least stand to transition to representative money if fiat money was asking too much. Draco didn’t follow a word of it, but she seemed convinced.)

Draco sighs. "They don't make it easy, do they? I don't suppose...accio Cup of Hufflepuff!" Nothing moves. "To be expected. Well, be careful. I doubt anything in here is something you want to touch casually."

They find the cup. They have a hard time getting it, and Draco is almost ashamed of how they escape, on the back of a dragon, but they survive.

When Draco sees Harry, he wants to sweep him off his feet.

When Harry tells Draco they have to go back to Hogwarts, Draco wants to scream in frustration. "Don't you see, Harry, that we just made it out? We've done nothing but escape death after death after death." He can't say that. Harry doesn't understand the value of his life as anything but a tool.

Draco knows what the Battle of Hogwarts is before it begins. It's why he goes with Harry to find the diadem. ("After all, Harry, we both know you only passed because you had me and Hermione staring over your shoulder when you studied. I don't trust you to get into Ravenclaw all on your own.")

Draco doesn't need to see any more of the battle than he can help. It was never supposed to be his fight. It was, to be fair, never supposed to be any of their fights, but some matters can't be helped.

Around them, Hogwarts becomes a battleground. Draco wonders for how many students this is just as painful. Draco wonders how many students are watching what they have only known as their home be bloodied. Draco wonders how Harry is keeping it together.

Maybe for some, defence is a kind of love. Draco doesn’t. Draco thinks defence is the vilest form of self-gratification. Draco thinks defence only exists so you can prove to yourself you love a place. Draco doesn’t believe in loving things for yourself.

It’s why he loves Harry.

Draco is struck quite suddenly by the fact that he’s never told Harry he loves him.

He is also astoundingly aware of the fact that this is an entirely inappropriate time to bring it up.

He does it anyway.

Harry looks at him, his mouth slightly open and his eyes suddenly pulled up at the edges, like they are fighting to make a smile.

“Yeah. I love you too, Draco.” Draco selfishly wants one more moment. He selfishly wants one more kiss. He selfishly wants just that much more.

Draco was placed in Gryffindor in his first year. His father almost came down to the school to demand he be replaced, but he decided not to bother. Almost everyone in Gryffindor hated him, and he didn't blame them. He hated himself, for having the audacity to be sorted into Gryffindor. 

He never made a good Gryffindor, anyway. He wasn't bold enough. He wasn't brash enough. He was just foolish. He was just impulsive. All children are impulsive, but Draco made just one too many decisions to be in the realm of standard impulsivity. Or something like that.

Draco didn’t make a good Gryffindor, but as he watches Voldemort carry Harry’s dead body, he thinks it must be a good thing that he didn’t. Because right now, a Gryffindor, a good Gryffindor, would be angry.

Angry that they even thought they would dedicate their lives to what has killed Harry. Angry that they didn’t act soon enough. Angry that they were ever subtle. Angry that they didn’t spend every bit of their energy fighting.

But Draco is not a good Gryffindor, so he shoves that anger down.

Snakes still their bodies before they strike.

Draco is shaking.

Draco is so angry. Draco is so angry he can taste blood even though he is very sure he isn’t biting down on anything. And as he watches Neville, who regrettably is a better Gryffindor than he, come to life, he thinks that he will not be the only one tasting blood tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading <3
> 
> Many thanks to [inkpink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkpink/pseuds/inkpink). I don't believe she's still active, but I recommend investigating her work - she doesn't have anything Harry Potter, but everything she's written is fantastic and worth a read. She used to be my beta, and she came out of retirement, so to speak, to give this a once over (which turned into two), which was no easy task.
> 
> I've been working on this for nearly three years, hinting at it in almost every author's note (back when I had a schedule for writing), and it's taken me far longer than I anticipated to actually get it out. It's become my magnum opus, a monument to how I've grown as a writer in these past three years. In that, the decision that felt the worst to make (the expanding length of the piece) in the rough draft stages became it's greatest strength - I would betray myself if I had the longer sections at the beginning.
> 
> I try not to wax too poetic in my author's notes (although I usually fail), but this piece carries a certain place in my heart and finishing it is symbolic of the end of an era. I have many things to finish, but I am no longer a 15 year old with more ambition than gumption. I have not accrued a large following in my time posting, and as I begin to edit and post what is left of my work, I imagine someone reading this may think I am saying my final goodbyes too early - that the bulk of my work takes place after this moment. But what is left in my fanfiction folder deserves finishing, and I have made promises to series and stories, many of which simply need a final pass.
> 
> But I am moving on, and to those who do follow me (all wonderful 3 of you), as well as anyone who stumbles across this (whether because it appeals to you or because it is by me, if I may tempt my ego), I would like to sincerely thank you for being an audience to me. To K, who has put up with every strange idea I have ever had; and to J, who has followed me silently, supporting me without question.
> 
> Sentimentality aside, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced me to find an outlet for my energy, which I imagine will be in creativity. I will be going through my entire fanfiction folder piece by piece, publishing everything that has any value left in it. If you happen to follow a series by me, it will be finished. I will leave no outstanding debts to my name.
> 
> Finally, once again, thank you for reading.


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